Visions in the dark
by Pendergastlover
Summary: A blind woman whose mutation allows her to see the future. A woman whose mutation gives her extremely sharp eyesight. A man whose mutation has made him an unwilling vampire. And they are all headed to visit Xavier's School for the Gifted pended some ho
1. Prologue

Outside Inverness, Scotland

Rain slashed the windows, clattered on the roof of the cottage. Outside, the moors had turned to an ocean of mud where rivers of dirty water rushed down into the roads, rendering them impassible. Horses on the moor huddled together to shield themselves from the cold and wind, heads and tails tucked down. The cottage was lost in the gray curtain of rain gusting almost horizontally across the wide open spaces.

Inside the cottage, despite a blazing fire, the cold had begun to seep in under the windows and around the doors. Copper pots hanging in the kitchen rattled together as a gust found a way inside. The woman pulled a wrap closer about her shoulders, burrowing into the wool as her eyebrows drew closer together. She watched the boiling water before her with intense concentration, but every once and a while, she glanced over her shoulder, down into a dark hallway. For the moment, no sounds came from the darkness, but she knew that would not last forever, and she stirred the golden liquid again. It was beginning to boil.

Suddenly, a scream split the air. The woman jumped, and shot a nervous glance over her shoulder. There was a pause, and then the scream erupted again. She gave a tremble, and lifted the put from the stove, pouring the liquid into a mug. Then she hurried down the hall, clutching her shawl and the mug.

Inside the room, only a series of candles clustered under a portrait of the crucified cross provided any light. Her husband knelt at the bedside, a rosary woven through his clasped hands. His mouth moved in quiet prayer, Latin phrases tumbling out over the bed. "Pater noster qui es in caelis; sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra…"

The girl on the bed twisted and rolled, clutching at the blankets, her head thrown back, back arched, mouth open in a silent scream. Then the scream tore through her throat. The praying man jumped for a moment, then resumed his prayer. "Et ne nos inducas in temptationem, sed libera nos a malo. Quoniuam tibi est regnum et potestas et Gloria in saecula. Amen."

He gave one more glance at the girl, who showed no sign of improving, and stood to join his wife in the doorway. "Has she changed?" she whispered, her voice tight with fear.

He shook his head, then winced as the girl gave a strangled scream. "No. What about the priest?"

She shook her head. "The phone lines are down. But the roads…Nobody could use them anyway." She turned as the girl again twisted and struggled, gasping, occasional shrieks tearing through her throat. The woman gripped her husband's arm. "Henry, what are we going to do? The demon has gripped her completely."

Henry glanced at the oil of Christ. "We can only trust in God, now. Alanna is in His hands. He will do as He sees fit." He wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulder's, kissed her forehead as he drew her near. "Trust in God, Sarah."

On the bed, Alanna twisted, shrieked, sweat coating her body. She had clutched her eyes to try to shut out the images she saw. Images of pain and suffering, of blood and violence. Some showed children dying of hunger. Some showed people being shot. Some showed people taking things that didn't belong to them. Some showed mothers giving birth to children that did not move. And yet other images showed normal things. People going to work. Her mother in the kitchen. Her parents in the doorway. But she was not facing them. Her eyes were shut!

She scratched wildly at her eyes, trying to claw the images from her mind. As she felt the warm rush of blood over her face, pouring from the cuts she had gouged in her face, she heard her parents shouting at her to stop. But she didn't care, she didn't care. She wanted the pictures _gone_!

Another shot of pain went slicing through her body and she screamed, throwing her head back, wanting to pray but not even being able to find the breath to form the words. She could not find any comfort, not in her all-consuming pain. Her unspoken prayers to God certainly provided no comfort. She wanted to see her parents. She had heard her father praying, and she had heard them speaking. She knew they were close. She could _feel_ them.

She opened her eyes and saw nothing. She tried again, and still saw nothing.

As her scream split the air, her parents looked over. When Sarah saw her daughter's milky white eyes, her own scream melded with her daughter's.


	2. Chapter 1

Port Lay, Alaska

Mandisa ignored the sneer the bartender gave her, and resisted breaking the nose of the trucker who grabbed her ass, and returned to the table in the corner, a mug of beer and a glass of wine in hand. As she approached, she marveled at her companion's ability to blend in with the dark. She wore a long silver cloak that somehow managed to blend in with the musky dark brown of the bar corner. Mandisa had never in all her life seen a more incongruous pair, the divey, backwoods bar and the slender, elegant figure whose face was hidden by the cowl of the long silver, silken cloak.

Mandisa set down the mug and glass and slid into the booth beside her friend. She glowered at the bar in general, though the other patrons had long since given up on eyeing her, and had returned to staring at the bottoms of their mugs. She took a gulp of beer and slammed the mug down on the table top.

"Nasty, nasty people," she muttered. She glanced at the other woman, who had yet to move. "Yeah, it's fine for you, you just hang out back here, and don't have to worry about any of those fuckers."

The woman opened her mouth. When she spoke, her voice was smooth, even, so completely perfect that Mandisa found herself falling into a trance. A trance she had become quite familiar with in the past few years. "If you would like me to go the next time, I will."

As soon as she stopped speaking, Mandisa immediately snapped out of the trance. She blinked once, twice, and her head cleared totally. "No, it's fine. I'll do it. –Although, if you do, we might not have to pay."

The woman cocked her head, one corner of her full mouth tugging upward in a slight smile, but she didn't say anything. Instead, she lifted the glass of dark red wine, studied it for a moment, and then sipped.

Mandisa watched her for a moment, and then shook her head, took another sip of beer. After a moment of watching the rest of the bar, she said, "Are we done here?"

"In Port Lay?" The woman's lips tightened for a moment, then relaxed. "I am not sure."

"Didn't we do what we came to do?"

"Yes, originally. But…"

"But what?"

The woman was silent for a moment, thoughtful, and then finally spoke again. "I do not know. But…I feel like there might be something…something else, waiting for us, here in Alaska. I do not think it is quite time yet that we go. Something is going to happen."

"When?"

The woman paused, then suddenly looked up, focusing her attention beyond Mandisa, out into the bar. "Now."

Mandisa turned just in time to see a huge man stand suddenly, and sweep his table aside with one movement. He was glowering at a much smaller man who wore large glasses and now cowered at his own table in the shadow of the other man. Mandisa recognized the big man as the trucker who had grabbed at her ass earlier. She leaned forward, interested to see what had caused the fight and what would happen.

The trucker approached the little man, who seemed to cower even lower. "Who did you say?" the trucker growled.

"Theresa," the man whimpered. "Theresa, that's all."

The trucker snorted in derision. "She's not your _wife_."

For a moment, a look of complete confusion crossed the man's face. "How do you know my wife?"

The trucker suddenly laughed, throwing his head back. The little man did not seem to know what to do, and gave a short, high-pitched giggle. Suddenly the trucker stopped laughing, and now his voice was twice as menacing as it had been. "You fucking nerd. What do you think you're laughing at? Shut the fuck up. Theresa's mine, _mine_ you got that?"

"Well…actually…"

The trucker growled, and raised a fist. Out of the corner of her eye, Mandisa caught a glimpse of silver movement, and the next thing she saw was her companion standing between the two men. She stood completely still, her walking staff—a slender, perfectly smooth staff of silver wood—held in one hand. When she had moved from her place in the corner, her cowl had dropped back, revealing smooth alabaster skin, long white hair, and milky eyes.

The trucker stopped, his face registering his shock, not only at Alanna's general appearance, but at the mere fact that someone would stand between him and his prey. For a moment, he seemed not to know what to do. But then he overcame his shock and once again his face showed hostility. "Get out of my way, bitch, unless you want me to hit you, too. And I _will_ do it."

"No, you won't," Alanna said. "And you won't touch this man, either."

The trucker gave a barking laugh. "You think you can tell me what to do, bitch?"

"And I expect you to obey," she answered.

That seemed too much. The man brought back his fist and swung it down, the blow aimed directly at Alanna's face. Mandisa did not even have time to react to try to save her blind friend. And yet, Alanna _did_ react. She tilted her head to the side, dodging the blow, then swept her staff upward, catching the man under the chin. His head snapped back with a crack. For a moment, he stood, wavering, his head tossed back. And then he, very slowly, almost in slow motion, fell back, back, until he crashed to the floor.

For several minutes, there was absolute silence and stillness in the bar. Alanna stood over the body of the trucker, as still and silent as the rest of the bar. And then she drew the cowl back up over her head, hiding her face. She turned to Mandisa. "It is time for us to leave."

Alanna turned her face to the dark, snowy forest whipped past the window, though she could not see it. It was not the first fight she had stopped, nor did she expect it to be the last. But stopping barroom brawls was not the reason why she had come to Alaska with Mandisa. She had come for a much more important reason: for answers. Answers she did not feel she had found. Which worried her. And yet, she felt like, even though Alaska did not hold her answers, the trip had not been made in vain. She felt something was about to happen, something huge. But she could not tell what.

At the beginning, when her mutation had first made itself known, she had not understood what had happened. She knew she had gone blind, though from what, she did not know. And yet, she could still see. But not like she had seen before. Now, her sight came in flashes, and not as things happened, but _before_ they happened. It had taken her quite a while to understand that. Walking along the street with her mother, she had screamed a warning to a man crossing the road several seconds before a truck rounded a blind corner and killed him. After several more incidents like that, and after countless visits to specialists, her parents had begun to realize that this strange sight was not going to disappear, and that something had happened to their daughter they could not explain.

Then a man named Robert Lyle had appeared on their doorstep. He had called himself a mutant specialist, and wanted to examine Alanna. He wouldn't charge them anything. Alanna's parents had let him look at their daughter, and Lyle had poked and prodded, tested her sight by throwing things at her. He had finally pronounced her the most extraordinary mutant he had ever seen, and announced that he had a school for such people as her, and wanted to take her away to train her to use her gift to the utmost.

So it had been Lyle who had taken her away to a distant compound in Mongolia, where, with several dozen other students, she had learned to use her mutation to not only exist safely, but to help others. Once she had outgrown the training, and had become an independent woman, she had left Mongolia and traveled the world.

And then the visions had started. They were different than her regular foresight, which came during the day, in flashes, a few seconds before the event occurred. These happened at night, like dreams, only much, much more vivid, and the next morning she could remember them in every perfect detail. At first she had written them off as extraordinary dreams, but then they started to come true. An earthquake in California that killed thousands. A terrorist attack in Tokyo that killed hundreds. Event after catastrophic event that she saw in her dreams came true. She could see the future. Not just the important motions of the people around her, but life-changing, world-shaping events.

Alanna sat back, smelling the rich leather of the seat, feeling the powerful throb of the Astin Martin Vanquish around her. For several weeks, she had felt something new, something far more powerful and terrible, that had pushed all other foresight to the back of her mind. But unlike her other visions, this she could not see, only feel, in a growing sense of dread that made her wake at night, dripping in sweat and sick with worry.

Mandisa's voice broke into her thoughts. "Where're we going, 'Lanna?"

Alanna thought for a moment before answering. "Head to Toronto. We have to pick up Tristan. And then we go to New York, to pay a surprise visit."


	3. Chapter 2

Toronto, Canada

The Black Tree might very well have been the only divey, shifty bar in all of Toronto, perhaps even Canada. The Canadians, Alanna thought, just didn't do shifty very well. The Black Tree was probably less Canadian, anyway, and more a product of the city's closeness to the States. Still, Canadian or not, it had all the smells and sounds of a sketchy back-alley dive, and Alanna wondered why she and Mandisa always found themselves in such places.

Several feet away, Mandisa spoke to the bar tender. "He's…six feet, maybe a little taller. He's pale, has long black hair. Thin. Does any of that ring a bell?"

"Yeah, sure. You're talkin' 'bout Tristan."

"Yes! Exactly. Where is he? Have you seen him?"

"Sure, he came in here last night. He's staying at a place a couple blocks down. –But you ain't gonna find him there now. He's one of them night owls, likes the night life."

"Thanks for your help."

A second later, Alanna felt Mandisa join her at their corner table. "The bartender knows him. Should we go wait for him?"

"No. We can't afford to waste time. We'll look in the alleys around here. We'll find him."

The two stood and made their way quickly out of the bar, back to the Vanquish. Alanna was glad to be out of the place. Bars were crowded with loud, smelly people, and she always found her senses overloaded. She could barely think with the assault on her ears and nose, nevermind concentrate.

While Mandisa drove, Alanna tried to relax, tried to think about anything besides the growing dread in her belly. Not for the first time, she regretted the fact that the appearance of her mutation, her ability to see the future, had resulted in blindness, in her ability to see the world in the present. She had used her mutation to save lives before, but she wondered if the price was worth it. She felt bad, wondering that, but the thought sometimes crept into her mind late at night when she couldn't sleep. The blindness set her apart from the world even more than the mutation did. All mutants were cut off from the world in one way or another, whether by ability or physical appearance. But she was doubly so, cut off both by her ability, _and_ by the blindness.

Then again, Tristan had it even worse, she had to admit. He was cut off from the rest of humanity by the very fact of his mutation, but even moreso by the necessities of his mutation. It had been almost two years since she had last met with Tristan, but she could still clearly remember how his voice had been strained from the mental anguish his mutation placed upon him. Mandisa had described him as extremely gaunt, barely more than skin and bones. Alanna hoped they would find him in better health, but somehow doubted it.

"We're at the apartment," Mandisa announced. The Vanquish slowed. "Now what?"

"Are there alleys?"

"All over the place. You'd be hard-pressed to find more alleys."

"Start searching."

"What? All of them?"

"The darkest ones first."

Mandisa gave a weary sigh, but the Vanquish accelerated a moment later. Alanna settled back into her seat, rested. After the first painful night, when her mutation first made itself known, there had been a stream of doctors. Her parents wanted to know what had caused her blindness, and if she would ever regain it. All the doctors had been able to determine was that the loss of her sight was, indeed, connected to her mutation. They tried a battery of treatments for the blindness, but nothing had worked. And finally they had given up. Even the great Robert Lyle had been unable to find a cure. It seemed her sight was the permanent price she had paid for a mutation she did not even want.

"Do you see anything? Anyone?"

"Oh, I see plenty of people," Mandisa answered. The Vanquish had slowed, and was creeping along, the engine purring powerfully. "But I sure don't see Tristan. Maybe he's not even here. Maybe he's back in the apartment. I think we should have gone and checked."

Alanna frowned, shook her head, long waves of silky white hair brushing over her shoulders. "No." She concentrated for a moment, then pointed ahead. "There. There's a corner ahead?"

"Yes," Mandisa answered slowly.

"Go to it. On the left."

"What's on the left?"

"Something's going to happen."

The car rolled on for a few more seconds, and then stopped. The powerful engine idled. "Well, we're there," Mandisa said, her voice clipped with exasperation. "And I don't see anything."

"Wait…wait…_Now_." Just as Alanna finished speaking, she heard a sudden pounding of feet, what sounded like two pairs of feet. "What's happening?" she whispered.

"There's a woman, looks like a prostitute, maybe. She's running, I don't know why. –Wait, there's someone else. A man. It looks…it's Tristan!"

Alanna heard Mandisa reach for the door handle and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "No. Don't interrupt. Just watch."

Mandisa frowned and returned her attention to the two. The woman had reached the corner, and was just about to step into the lighted street when she was suddenly jerked off her feet. She fell back, and Mandisa saw that the man had grabbed her jacket. He hauled her back, out of the light of the street. A normal human would not have been able to see what happened next, but Mandisa's preternaturally sharp vision illuminated even the darkest of spaces, and she had no trouble watching.

The man wrapped his arms around the struggling woman, who pushed against his shoulders and chest, trying to free herself. Her lips opened, ready to scream, but before she could emit any sound, the man lowered his head, pressed his lips against her neck. Mandisa's gold eyes, with their cat-like slits, caught the glean of a thin stream of blood that escaped the man's mouth.

The woman went limp, and after another moment, the man pulled away, his lips and teeth shiny with red blood. He lowered her gently to the ground, arranging her in a comfortable position in the shadows, wiped the sleeve of his dark suit across his mouth, and after taking a quick glance around, continued to cross the street.

Mandisa slipped out of the car. "Tristan?"

The man paused, looking her over, and then his face broke into a smile. He jogged over to the Vanquish, his silky black hair blending with his suit. He enveloped her in a hug. "Mandisa! How wonderful to see you. And Alanna, she is here too?" His voice was the smooth honeyed accent of the gentry of the deep American south. He ducked his head and looked into the car, smiled at Alanna. "And Alanna, you are looking as lovely as ever."

Alanna inclined her head slightly. "Tristan."

"Did you get our message?" Mandisa asked. "Alanna was certain it'd reach you, but I had my doubts."

"I most certainly did, though I didn't expect you so quickly. I guess this magnificent vehicle you have somehow acquired helped to speed you down from Alaska."

"Yeah. –Are you ready?"

"My bags are packed, and ready at my apartment. It will only take a moment to pick them up. Shall we?"

Mandisa nodded, but before Tristan could enter the car, she took a hold of his sleeve. He turned back to her, his nearly translucent skin glowing faintly in the yellow light of a streetlamp. "Is she dead?"

Tristan looked back across the street, and suddenly looked ashamed. "You saw that?" Mandisa only nodded. "I wish you hadn't. –No, she's not dead. She fainted, that's all. They often do that. Even the men, though I don't do them so often; they fight more. And better. She'll wake up in a few minutes. –Which, actually, reminds me: we should move quickly. I'd rather not still be here when she wakes."

Mandisa nodded and motioned him to get in the car, and then took her place at the driver's seat.


	4. Chapter 3

Toronto, Canada

Tristan Louis D'Aubigne took one last look around the dingy apartment, slung his last bag over his shoulder, and closed and locked the door. Although the apartment had been his home for nearly a year, he felt no remorse at leaving it behind. Dark, dirty, and dingy was not his style. He much preferred the sunny balconies, arched porticoes, airy courtyards and spacious, elegant rooms of his native New Orleans. The apartment in Toronto had been a temporary accommodation, he had known right from the start. And although he doubted Mandisa and Alanna had found him to take him back to his southern home, he had no doubt that one day, he _would_ return there.

He took the stairs down to the road two at a time, the silk of his shirt whispering softly against his skin. As he moved, he could feel the fresh blood in his stomach sloshing a bit. It was an uncomfortable reminder of what his unique mutation had driven him to doing. He was thankful he could survive without having to kill his victims, but he wondered how long that could last. Since the appearance of his mutation at puberty, the symptoms, the need for blood, had progressed. At the very beginning, a raw steak had sufficed. Now, although he could still eat normal food, it gave him no strength. Only blood, pure and hot, could satiate his hunger and bring strength and health to his body. Now, only a pint or so a night was enough, but what about in several years? He feared the future, he didn't mind admitting.

The cool night air touched his skin as he stepped outside, and he glanced down to look at the moonlight shining off his white skin. He hadn't been out in the sun in over a year. It wasn't necessary, him staying out of the sun. Unlike the vampires of myth, he could endure sun all he liked. But once he had realized he needed blood—_human_ blood—to satisfy his mutation, he had found a bitter irony in playing out the role of the nightmarish creatures.

Too, his night habits made hunting much easier. It would have been difficult to attach someone and drink their blood in bright daylight. At night, every dark alley, every recessed doorway became a place for ambush. And he had discovered that even in Canada, so famed for its sweet, law-abiding citizens, there were plenty of people who frequented such dark places. Drug dealers and users. Prostitutes. Teenagers looking for a thrill. Crazies. Those were the sorts of people who had become his nightly meals.

Mandisa waited outside, leaning against the Vanquish. He could just see Alanna's pale form inside the Astin Martin, her head bowed, silvery hair cascading about her in silky waves. God, she was beautiful, he thought. Just as beautiful as she had been, all those years before, when they had first met and he had fallen hopelessly for her. –He cut those thoughts, painful, unnecessary memories, from his pattern of thought, and flung the bag into the truck, slammed it shut.

"Let's go," he said, with a nod to Mandisa.

As he slipped into the car, Alanna turned slightly in her front seat, just enough so he could see the left side of her face, and where the nasty scar ran from just above her eyebrow to below her cheekbone. "It is wonderful to have you with us again," she said.

Instantly he felt himself fall into that trance. He and Mandisa had once had a conversation about it, wondering how a voice, even a mutant's voice, could be so perfect, so melodious. And it was perfect. The perfect tones that seemed to shimmer, echo-like, in his mind, lingering long after she had stopped speaking. It didn't even matter what she said. She could lull him into that dreamy trance, like walking through a garden of Eden, with a word of praise or a word of disappointment with equal ease.

As the Vanquish purred to powerful, V12 life and peeled away from the curb, Tristan couldn't help but ask, " So where are we going?"

"Westchester, New York," Alanna answered, while Mandisa still had her mouth open, about to answer. "There was a man there once, who dreamed of making the world safe for mutants. He died trying to make that dream come true."

"Xavier," he answered, not missing a beat.

"You know of him." It wasn't a question.

"Of course. After the supposed cure made its debut, and the catastrophe at Alcatraz, everything about Xavier, his school, Magneto…Everything was a new story unto itself. Everything was public domain. –Why are we going there? --And I assume we _are_ going to the school."

"Yes. We are going because…because something is looming in the future." Her voice had grown quiet, as if she was no longer speaking to him, but to herself.

"You think this something has to do with mutants? What dreadful thing could involve mutants, Alanna? Since the Alcatraz event, once the President assigned a mutant as his ambassador, there has been peace. The registration act has not been brought up in the senate, the protests have died down. Why should you suspect that something is going to go wrong?"

Alanna faced front again, let out a long sigh. "I don't know, Tristan. It's only…only a feeling."

"Your premonitions?"

"Yes, in a way. But it's not the flashes I usually get. It's something…different. It's more of a feeling than something I can see. I don't know much about it, only that it scares me. And that it's something terrible. Something far more terrible than anything this world has ever seen before."


End file.
